China Day 5

Had to get moving early today to fit everything in before our train ride tonight. Datong is west of Beijing and about 50 kilometers from the border with Inner Mongolia. You could really see the difference in the look of the people here from in Beijing – definitely more Mongolian looking – higher cheekbones, flatter noses. Datong is a city of about 1.3 million people with 3 million in the surrounding area and certainly a city on the rise. Everywhere you looked there were tall, tall apartment buildings being constructed and wide roads and bridges being built and old tenements being torn down. It was really unbelievable how many apartment units there were and was baffling to try to figure out where the people would come from to fill them. But the dichotomy of the city was very apparent. There were either new apartment complexes and parks and roads or houses that looked like they had been bombed out with unpaved roads and trash spewed everywhere.

These are all apartment buildings being built.  There were hundreds of them.

And then you saw cows being herded across the street.

And donkey-pulled carts going down the road.



This is a village just outside of Datong.

Our first stop was the Hanging Temple – an amazing feat of architecture and engineering that was built in 491 AD! It was a temple that was built fully out of wood on the side of a cliff without a nail – all of this more than 1,500 years ago! The temple was built as a Buddhist temple, but also served as a Tao and Confusian temple over the years so consequently there are all three religions represented. Did you know that only 20% of the population in China is religious? That’s all religions combined. Buddhism was brought to this area by the Mongolian empire that raided and took over around 400 AD. They built this temple on the side of the cliff because the river below (before being dammed) used to flood the valley and everything would get washed away. This was truly an amazing site.  The poles off the bottom don't actually support anything unless the load in the temple gets too heavy!

Dad and Cannon in front of the Hanging Temple (it was a bit chilly!)

Emmy was having a ball, but London was not too thrilled with the height.  I think this picture captures that!

Yes, it's a long way down...

One of the statues in the temple.  A lot of damage occured during the Cultural Revolution.

The second stop was back in Datong for lunch at – you guessed it! – a Chinese restaurant! The food here was Yummy with a capital Y. The specialty of this province was some noodle dish and a pork dish that was a delectable slightly sour taste. Double Yummy! The other cool thing about the restaurant was that there was a Chinese wedding taking place during lunch. Seemed like an odd time to us – 1:00 on a Tuesday afternoon, but I guess not for the Chinese. We observed the proceedings for a bit while the wedding-goers observed us.

Yes, they seem very curious in Datong about us “foreign devils” – their term, not mine. But mostly they just stare at us with a curiosity about as intense as us looking at the pandas at the zoo. Granted, they do like to take our photo – especially Emmy, sometimes London and today, Cannon. A whole group of tourists captured him at our third stop and wouldn’t let him go. I think it was the braces!



This is a photo of men taking photos of Cannon.  They were fascinated with him!



He just kept smiling!

Stop three were the Buddha Grottos, something I had read only a little about but was completely blown away by. On the other side of Datong to the Hanging Temple is a series of caves, or grottos, that have been carved into the sandstone. Each cave houses a collection of Buddhas – some 17 meters tall, some 2 centimeters tall and all sizes in between. But there were thousands of these Buddhas in various positions in these series of about 17 caves. 51,000 Buddhas in all! And the even more amazing thing is that these caves were carved over 1,500 years ago by those industrious Mongolian invaders. Each cave was started by carving a “window” at the top into which the artists climbed to begin carving the Buddhas. They worked their way down the sandstone by hauling out the rock through the window. The last thing they carved out was the door.

This is one of the windows.

Thousands of tiny Buddhas.

You can see the window and the door I was describing in this photo.

We would have loved to have spent a little more time at this fascinating place, but an overnight train to Xi’an was calling our name and so we were whisked expediently to the train station. As a side note, “whisked” in an understatement. You have never, no never, seen driving like here. They continuously use their horn as they pass within inches of cars, bikes and pedestrians (even an odd donkey-pulled cart outside of Datong) often on the wrong side of the road, even on twisty mountain roads. They break so many traffic rules you really have to wonder if there are any! My advice is to never play a game of chicken with a Chinese driver!

So now I’m on the overnight train to Xi’an about to cap off my 39th year in a dream-like state. Hope the next 39 years are as good!

Dinner and drinks on the overnight train!



Ramen for dinner, it was the only safe option.